Free To Find a Viking Treasure (Norse Series Book 2) by Gina Conkle

and went to Estland by the Rus. I was there a long time.” He paused, crossing his arms loosely, watching her with equal interest. “Later, the Sousse seaport in the Abbasid Caliphate. From there, life on the Tigris River before I went to the Balearic Islands and then the seas…everywhere and nowhere, until I met Hakan eight winters ago.”
    He kept his voice level, recounting the distant lands without emotion. Sestra was all doe eyes, big and soft, when he finished. Did she read his past when he named certain places?
    “Long stays in far flung lands,” she said quietly. “That’s how you learned foreign words.”
    His legs twitched, not finding his seat on the grass comfortable anymore. He hoped she wasn’t showing pity. He didn’t want it. Recounting simple facts, places of long ago left him exposed. Not even the sands of time could bury jagged memories. He’d told her more than he’d told the men he fought with serving Hakan.
    Sestra’s silence rang loud in his ears, all the more powerful for the hazy roar of the waterfall. She wanted more of him, and he couldn’t give it to her.
    His back drove back hard against the rock as her attention wandered over the stones around him. Her hunt for knowledge of him was at a standstill, though she pushed off the ground on her hands and knees, her braid swinging forward.
    Was she going to touch him?
    Arms dropping to his sides, he craved her touch. Wanted it badly. Sestra inched closer on hands and knees, hips and breasts swaying. Her hand slid along his thigh. She stretched out in the grass beside him and reached into the pile of rocks.
    “Brandr, is this…” She winced, working hard, the breeze carrying her words.
    Sestra wiggled against his leg. Her arm came out from the heap, the sleeve covered with dirt and broken bits of rock.
    Her hand cradled a chunk of white stone marked with red.

Chapter Five
    The deeper he dug, the less they found. Hours of back-breaking labor yielded coins, a necklace, two arm rings, and fragments of cut silver. A broken slab of rune stone slanted on the grass, a leather bag of middling size on top.
    Sestra’s eyes had lit up at the treasure, a boon for a slave to touch. Bronze coins had jingled through her fingers, and she’d held up a necklace of braided silver to sunlight. Her delight fed him, made him shovel dirt until the pit was as deep and long as he was tall.
    Though neither uttered the word freedom, its spirit was in the air. Sestra’s eyes sparkled differently the first moment he handed over the dirt covered bag. She’d hugged the clinking pouch and rolled in the grass, laughing with pure abandon. Her joy was the better treasure. Jaw set, he dug deeper until he stood in an empty hole higher than his head.
    Sweat dripped down his temple. He jabbed the shovel into loamy soil, a faint chink of metal on metal sounding.
    He dropped to one knee and his finger scratched free the last well-traveled coin. “This is the last of the loose pieces.”
    Sestra stretched out on the grass above him, her chin cupped in her hand. Her thick braid dangled over the pit’s edge, a red ribbon against brown soil. She was richness like the earth. Sif . 
    “The larger bag’s not here, is it?”
    He swiped his sleeve across his face. Her spirit bolstered him, made him keep digging for the simple reward of her smile at unearthing a single coin.
    “No,” he said, his thumb rubbing silver stamped with a roaring lion, a coin of Thrace.
    “These loose pieces have to be from the larger portion. The smaller bag was tied up well.”
    He balanced the Thracian coin in his palm. The rune stone was newly broken. Where the marker had been split, the rock showed clean and white.
    “Could be Gorm decided it was too risky keeping the treasure in one place.” Standing up, he wiped the silver clean on his tunic before lobbing it into the open pouch.  
    “What do we do now?”
    “Take what we have back to Hakan.”
    Sestra pushed up on her knees.